NOTES ON A SALT-MARSH AT BRANSTON. 57 
high up the valley as Branston, or whether they have developed in 
congenial soil from the seeds accidently carried by wild fowl up 
the course of the Trent from the sea-side. The appearance of 
Samodlus, first noted in this district in 1889, affords a strong proof 
of the latter theory, z.e., the carrying by birds, being the correct 
one, for such a conspicuous plant could hardly have escaped so 
careful an observer as the late Mr. Brown, and, granting its intro- 
duction, its seed must have been brought there by some agency 
or other, and what more probable a one than that of birds? It 
now bids fair to become abundant, judging by its rate of increase 
during the past year. 
In conclusion, we cannot refrain from quoting an amusing 
extract from Dr. Plot’s work, which is given as a commentary on 
the Newbold Springs, and which shows very markedly the amount 
of credulity which our forefathers possessed. It runs thus :— 
“It must be accredited to the saltness of the soil and grass that 
if any horned cattle of never so deep a black, or other colour, be 
put to feed in a place called the Clots, in Newbold Grounds, 
in the parish of Tatenhill, about one mile east of Dunstall, they 
will certainly change the colour of their coats to a whitish dun 
(like a daw’s head) in a summer's running, and so they will if put 
on Tatenhill Common, or Black Stew, another parcel of Newbold 
Grounds : nor does only the grass, but the hay of these grounds 
will also turn the cattle to this whitish dun, which, it is said, they 
recover not in two or three years’ time, though put into grounds 
that have nothing of this quality. As for horses, they are improved 
upon these grounds at a great rate, only they make them dappled, 
be they of what colour soever. All which proceeds, no doubt, 
from the saltness of the soil, that not only communicated itself to 
the grass, but to all the waters thereabout, making them brackish 
at least, as shown above.” 
